Android: Golem (The Identity Trilogy) (39 page)

Flattening against a recessed door to an office, I waited half a second for one of the men to step out from hiding, then roped an arm around his chest, pulled him forward, and tripped him. I clamped a hand over his mouth to keep him from crying out, then squeezed his jugular veins quickly to shut off blood flow to his brain just long enough to cause him to pass out. He went down quickly and quietly. Moving hurriedly, I laid the man on the floor and knelt beside him.

I stripped off the memory fiber mask he wore and captured an image of his face. I sent the image to emergency services and started a facial recognition trace of my own. That extra programming, while the anti-virus was working against the worm, slowed down my reflexes.
 

I surveyed the man. He was dressed for war. A combat harness held a knife and extra magazines for his weapons. I also found a selection of flashbang and smoke grenades. I took the grenades, shoved them into my pockets, and got moving again. Taking the grenades wasn’t a problem because they were non-lethal.

Five men were left.

I could still hear gunfire in the alley outside, but it was sporadic now.

I continued on and Blaine hobbled after me. He was making far too much noise, but there was reason to believe that the gunfire would be enough to cover the sounds. Also, the humans’ hearing would be ringing from all the explosions.

Short-range missiles tore through the ceiling behind us. I recognized the sound. Almost immediately, the mercenaries still in the warehouse started screaming in pain. I knew that many of them never had a chance.

I found the next man at a junction at the same time he found me. He whirled around and brought his assault rifle to bear. I gripped the barrel just as he fired and pointed it away from Blaine and me, then pulled the rifle forward and slammed the butt into his face just hard enough to guarantee unconsciousness. I tried not to break any bones, but I knew that was a possibility.

Again, I stripped off the mask, took the image, and looked for any signs that the men worked for Haas-Bioroid. So far, none of them had been identified.

Again, I found nothing. The database search continued to cycle, and the anti-virus finally flushed the worm from my memory. My senses picked up once more, and I moved easier.

“My systems are clean again.”

“Good.” Blaine’s voice sounded strained.

We came upon the third man in the darkness and I took out one of the flashbangs. I whispered to Blaine. “Cover your eyes.” Then I pulled the pin, started an internal timer, and lobbed the grenade into the air.

A split-second later, the flashbang detonated and ripped away the shadows that filled the warehouse. I opened my eyes, adjusted them to the sudden brightness, and saw the third man yanking at his goggles, obviously in pain.

Before I could reach the man, Blaine had his pistol out and shot him almost point-blank in the face. The man went down, and I was on him immediately. My hand caught his shoulder and his biometrics flashed through my system. At the same time, I tore his uniform sleeve, intending to use it to stop the bleeding, but it was already too late. I watched him flatline and release his last breath. I stared into his ruined face and captured the image anyway. Given time, I could reconstruct the man’s face. I set one of my programs to do that.

Blaine came up beside me. He stared down at the dead man. Despite the fear, I saw regret in his eyes. For all his bluster and bad reputation, Blaine wasn’t a man who killed easily. His face was pale and perspiration dappled his cheeks and forehead. His respiration was forced and irregular.

“Let’s go.”

“All right.” I stood and left the dead man there.

We kept moving toward the back of the warehouse, almost there now. Louis Blaine saw the fourth man before I did. Blaine bumped into me with his body to knock me to one side as he lifted his pistols. They exchanged shots and bullets flew through the air, digging into the nearby crates and scoring the floor in showers of sparks.

I palmed another flashbang and threw it toward our attacker, noting at the same time that another gunner had slipped in behind him and opened fire. The flashbang exploded in a shower of light and noise. I had my vid muted against the flare, so I didn’t lose any vision. Blaine and our two attackers weren’t so fortunate.

I went forward quickly as the flashbang began to burn out. Running, I shoved out an arm, caught one man across the chest, and caused him to somersault in mid-air, kicking him in the head as he came down. He sprawled unconscious.

The next man remained behind a stack of crates jutting out into the hallway. I pushed them over on him, knowing he would run. When he did, I stepped out of hiding and punched him in the jaw. His head twisted, but his jaw didn’t break, and he was out. I grabbed his shirt and lowered him to the ground so he wouldn’t hurt himself further.

If my earlier count was correct, only one man remained.

I glanced around the warehouse as full dark returned. My vision adjusted automatically. Blaine’s breath sounded loud behind me and ghosted across the back of my neck, causing my sensors to fluctuate as they registered it.

Noise came from ahead and to our right. I guessed that the remaining man was there. Behind us, a small force filtered into the warehouse, but by that time I could hear police sirens screaming through the area.
 

I picked another flashbang from my collection and readied it. I whispered a warning to Blaine, then tossed the grenade.

This time when the flashbang went off, the light revealed the massive girth of a sleek combat exosuit to my right. Our attackers were using everything they had now. It was three meters tall and 1.2 meters wide, capable of lifting three or four tons. Painted matte black, it looked like a mechanical shadow. The pilot fit snugly inside and servos whined as it moved. The only vulnerability of this particular exosuit was the lack of a reader shield.
 

The exosuit came at me with amazing speed. It clamped three-fingered hands on one of my forearms and shoulder, then squeezed with brutal strength. I felt the carbosteel alloy in my body start to fracture and warp.

Blaine fired at the man piloting the exosuit, but the suit didn’t have many places vulnerable to small arms fire. The bullets screamed madly off the heavy carbosteel limbs.

I used my free hand to reach inside the exosuit’s exposed inner arm, hooking my fingers into the hydraulic lines as I was lifted from my feet into the air. I yanked and the hoses shredded with high-pressured explosions. Purplish fluid splashed the exosuit and me, but the arm lost power. I squirmed free, landed on my feet, and repeated the process with the other arm. I started on the legs as the man controlling the suit tried desperately to kick me.

 
Before I could get to the second leg, the man abandoned the exosuit, exiting the back of the unit through the jettison switch. I got to my feet but it was already too late. The man managed three steps before Blaine shot him in the back of the head. I went forward, intending to aid the man if I could. My quick inspection revealed that the man’s memory fiber mask had stopped the round. The bullet hadn’t penetrated his skull, but it had knocked him out. He was still alive.

“Let’s go.” Blaine was beside me.

 
Behind us, through the open bay doors of the warehouse, I could see the advancing wave of attackers had broken off pursuit and taken cover as SWAT members in heavy-duty exosuits dropped into the alley. The massive exosuits came equipped with machine guns, and the men operating them wasted no time opening fire.

 
I closed my hand on Blaine’s arm. Together, we limped as fast as he could go to the back door that led out into the next alley. We walked out into a swirl of noise. Police hoppers hovered overhead and spotlights picked us up as we emerged from the warehouse.

“This is the New Angeles Police Department!” The mechanical voice boomed from one of the hoppers and echoed in the alley.

“Hold up here.” Blaine anchored himself and held me back. I hadn’t planned on going any farther anyway. Three of the spotlights pinned us against the warehouse’s open door. I was aware of standing framed there like a target. We’d be easily picked off by any of our attackers that might be lingering in the warehouse.

 
Of course, our attackers had their own problems. My comm contact and Blaine’s presence on the scene had guaranteed an instant response. Reports by nearby businesses of all the noise and violence in the area had triggered an even bigger response.

 
Whoever had attacked us had an exit plan, though, and had made a contingency for police involvement. The hoppers they’d brought to the ambush carried on-board weapons systems that would have done well as a military caravan.

 
Lasers and cannons opened fire and one of the nearby police hoppers exploded into an orange and black ball of fire and smoke that roiled across the sky. A moment later, the vehicle crashed against a nearby building and broke into several large pieces that dropped to the ground in flames.
 

“Stand where you are!” The mechanized voice continued in the same tone. “If you move, you will be shot.”

“We’re gonna be lucky if we don’t get shot anyway.” Blaine tossed his weapons to the ground and raised his hands over his head. He spoke to me over private comm, linking just the two of us.

I raised my hands as well.

“When we get back to the station, they’re going to separate us.” Blaine spoke quickly. “Here’s how we’re going to handle it. You tell them I brought you here. That’s not a lie because I did. We keep the mercenaries out of it. I’ll tell the brass I was acting on a tip. You were at the bar following up on whatever had you out tonight.”

I listened. Shelly and I had done things like this before. I wasn’t comfortable with it.

“Get comfortable with it.” Shelly stood in the shadows only a short distance away. I knew no one could see her except me. “You don’t want any more trouble than you already have.”

I nodded in agreement. “Okay.”

“I brought you hear to investigate a weapons sale. You called it in as soon as we’d confirmed it. By that time, we’d already been swallowed up in the frag.”

It was a simple enough story. That was what Shelly had always said was important when dealing with the lieutenant: keep the story simple and keep it tight. If you started embellishing things, a story would fall apart under its own weight.

“I was shot before I could comm it in. Once I knew you’d commed, there was no reason to follow up on things.” Blaine looked at the hovering police hopper. “Seeing you was a lucky break for me. No one wants to go on calls with me right now, and they sure wouldn’t want to go on a snipe hunt. With you, I knew I didn’t have to go alone.”

“How do we explain the mercenaries?”

“We don’t. Whoever the ambush team is, they’ll have records. So do the mercenaries. If there are any of them left alive, they won’t talk about the connection to me. Too many things will come apart if they do.”

I wondered what he meant by that but I didn’t ask.

“The investigating team will think one gang tried to rip off the weapons buy, or that somebody double-crossed the other team. There’s enough confusion here that nobody’s going to get an easy answer.”

That was true.

“You get out here this far from the civilized world, Drake, everything is based on deniability. We don’t know them and they won’t know us. Deny everything. You only knew you were out here to back up a brother officer. Just out for a look-see. Nothing more.”

I nodded.

“And the first thing you do is ask for a union representative.”

“I’m not human.”

Blaine smiled. “True. Better yet, yell for a lawyer from Haas-Bioroid. They’re going to want to shut this thing down, too. Especially if that ambush team came from them.”

I thought about that. I believed the ambush effort had come from Haas-Bioroid, or from Thomas Haas, at least. The worm I’d found in my software had to have come from him. But had it been there for spying or for tracking? I had no way of knowing.

Questions flitted through my mind like insects circling a flame. I had to play along with Blaine because if I didn’t, he could be killed.

One of the reasons not to tell anything more than I had to was, if I told everything I knew, the people involved would have more time to cover up everything that had been going on. I didn’t have all of the truth, and I wanted it.

“Just keep everything close, partner.” Shelly stood beside me. “When things go off the rails this badly, that’s what you have to do. Just move slowly.”

“You got it, Drake?” Blaine looked at me.

“Yes.”

“Everything is nice and simple. Keep it that way.”

“I will.”

A moment later, two exosuited policemen approached us at a near-jog. The ground quivered under the impacts of the exos’ huge, splayed feet.

“I’m Sergeant Louis Blaine.” Blaine spoke in a loud voice. “Scan my chip. I’m a sergeant for the NAPD. This is Detective Drake.”

 
“I know who you are, Blaine. I’ve never liked you.” The exosuited SWAT member’s amplified voice blasted around us. He pushed a big armored hand in front of Blaine’s face. Green-tinted gas shot out.